The December Drive
handslikegunsandcrashingsounds

It is a warm Tuesday in June, 2003. We are at the tail end of a certain movement and a certain music scene when a package arrives in the hands of the Hidalgo County sheriff. Immediately unwrapped. The fingerprints are clear. They belong to Simon Alexander, Nick Anzaldua, Phil Chairez, Robert Godinez, Toby Perez, Jason Stoll, and Charlie Vela, better known as The December Drive. Their intent is clear: “Hand Like Guns and Crashing Sounds”. Beyond that, only the number of files.

There are no other choices, the information about them is very scarce and to understand better, all that remains is to insert the disc into the player and press Play.

A few minutes of “1422” are enough to realize that we are faced with a post-rock and Midwest-emo mix, with a vein of Appleseed Cast and an injection of the best Thursday.

Most of the album is stitched with instrumental passages woven with skillful mastery by spurts of scream never being the protagonist, never excessive, and never annoying that rest humbly in the background. This ensures that the mood of the album always gives a certain sense of nostalgia and melancholy.

The songs are never trivial but always well-constructed, averaging around 5 minutes in length, and just when we reach the halfway point, "The Great Awakening" kicks in, a 14-minute suite that showcases the band's ability to effortlessly shift from a barely subdued piano melody to breakdowns and screams. All intertwined - particularly from the middle of the song onwards - by a truly exquisite guitar tapestry.

Tracks like “Buffalo Wing Diplomacy” and the splendid “No Remembering” rise and at the same time disintegrate at the right moment, with a mix of instrumental textures culminating in post-hardcore explosions and dirty, poignant riffs.

Worth mentioning are the nearly 3 minutes of “& Regret” in which the influences of GodSpeed You! Black Emperor (and the like) are more than evident and the splendid instrumental work in “And Now We Will Justify Your Criticism”, where everything lights up brilliantly only to fade out in a fade-out of distortions and wild screams.

The curtain falls and the Texas boys take a step back. They will attempt to return discreetly between 2006 and 2013, but the world - which in the meantime has never really noticed them - no longer has room for a handful of (former) 20-year-olds too genuine who have given life to an honest, sincere, and not at all artificial artistic urgency. However, let them be consoled. They rightfully deserve the award for the most “overrated” album of the new millennium.